GardenLend – rescuing neglected gardens

The announcement of the four areas to be the nascent Eco-Towns is, for may people, too little, too late and in the wrong place.  The upheaval, maladministration and bureaucracy involved makes the whole prospect quite unlikely to reap benefits for an appreciable period.  Then the results will be analysed, mulled over, reported upon, have money wasted in stated the bleeding obvious about, then reappraised with some potential further action along simlar lines, perhaps, maybe, sometime later.

These eco-towns are, for the most part, away from major centres of population and industry.  On most levels, it would never be noticeable if they were a success as they are effectively being measured in a void.  Unless fully sustainable, the additional impact of transport and provision of services, utilities and goods may well wipe out any benefits accrued.

Why not start nearer to home, if not at home itself?  Most people live in cities; the most populous in the UK being London; the same will apply to all conurbations.  Why not change food miles to food feet by growing your own food.  Your garden would be a starting point; failing that, an allotment.  With the scarcity of municipal land available, why not volunteer to use some council, church or state-owned space that has gone to wrack and ruin?  The LandShare scheme started after GardenLend approached Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to help promote our garden-sharing and home-grown food and flowers message.  The best systems seem to be ones organised on a face-to-face basis, on a local level – how local do you want?  Miles from anywhere?

Have a scout along the road where you live – has someone got a garden that really could do with a make-over?  Offer to help out; it will brighten up the area and help someone else, as well as providing a healthy outlet for pent-up energy – much more fruitful and cheaper than a session at the Gym.  The owner could guide you as to what their dream garden might be, or perhaps you could volunteer a few ideas of your own.  The social benefits, along with the more obvious health and environmental ones, are potentially enormous.  Why not help your neighbour? Just be prepared to lend a hand.

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The “Land Share” listings pages have gone live, according to the email I received this morning:

http://landshare.channel4.com/

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According to Horticulture Week, “consumers fed up with the credit crunch will look to escape the news blues in 2009 by heading for the garden.”

This is something surely to be welcomed, but what of those who do not have a garden or access to any areas in which they can plant, sow and tend fruit and vegetables?

Aberdeen council is looking at implementing a similar garden sharing scheme to the one in place in Edinburgh and ,as previously noted, council-run garden-sharing schemes are starting to pop up; probably far too slowly for those waiting and eager to start growing their own.

One of the problems of such municipal set-ups is the amount of bureaucracy involved: by the time any authority has stumbled across the idea, run it “up the flag pole”, got it considered at a council meeting, thought a bit further, paid some consultants a ridiculous amount of money to agree the bleeding obvious, reported back and even got half-way started implementing the project, several seasons and vast amounts of tax payers’ money has been wasted.

Monitoring will no doubt play a large part in any such schemes, adding additional layers of bureaucracy to an essentially simple idea, thereby causing further waste and delays.  If anyone has had any experience of council-run initiatives, the thought of them running on time or budget, smoothly or efficiently, without invasive interference, is at best a pipe-dream.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s “LandShare” project may encounter some of these problems; another that springs to mind is to which any “Guerrilla Gardening” operation is prey: namely that such “abandoned” or under-used plots of land that may be considered “up for grabs” need to have “designated guerrllas” else anyone could end up tending and – possibly more importantly – harvesting the fruits of another’s labours.  To circumvent this, “guerrlla police” will be required or perhaps the formation of a quango such as “OffMyLawn” or “OffPlot”, further adding layers of officialdom to what should be a community-led scheme of private agreements between growers and land-owners.

Hopefully, GardenLend, being a series of private arrangements between those with and those wanting space to grow food and plants, should not fall victim to these particular problems.

That said, all these initiatives are worthy and welcome in their own right: the more such projects and new ways of sharing the limited resources for the greatest good of the most people is surely in the interests of all.  Your thoughts – as ever – are warmly welcomed.

To end on a high note and to quote the mighty Zim: “It’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves”

Sources:

http://www.hortweek.com/channel/GardenRetail/article/870554/Consumers-will-head-garden-2009-says-HTA-president/

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1016164?UserKey=

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/idiot-wind

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A previous question, finally answered: LandShare

http://landshare.channel4.com/ – Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s latest initiative to to make British land more productive and fresh local produce more accessible to all.

Your thoughts are appreciated, as always.

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